Sherlock episode: The Speckled Bond- part1
by n. eagle
Summary: I decided to shorten the waiting by writing my own episode. I tried to stick as close to the series as I could. The story I used was "The Speckled Bond" and takes place some time before the Fall. Sherlock has to investigate the mysterious death of a well situated teen. Sorry for the grammar mistakes, I did my best and please enjoy


**Sherlock: The Speckled Bond**

„Sherlock! Sherlock, could you PLEASE hurry up?"  
John was leaning against the bathroom door and gave the innocent wood quite an uneasy look.

"That depends.", a voice responded from the inside.

"Depends on what?"  
"Do we have a customer?"  
"No, but…"

"Then why should I bother?"

"Because I have to go to the toilet, Sherlock.", John said through gritted teeth.

"So?"

"Please, it's getting quite desperate!"

"I'm not ready yet. Do I really have to tell you you can use Mrs. Hudson's?"

"Well, thanks for that, genius. But I'm not stupid." Sherlock snorted behind the door, but John ignored him. "Mrs Hudson is taking a bath."

"Then why don't you ask her to step out for a minute?"  
"Are you serious? You're just brushing your hair! You can do that in front of the mirror in the living room as well!"

He shouldn't get a response and after waiting for two more almost unbearable minutes, he left the room with a curse on his lips.

When Sherlock stepped out of the bathroom and went for the living room, he suddenly stumbled into somebody. "John, where do you have your…"

He paused. It wasn't actually John he ran into. Instead, he saw himself face to face with a young girl.

"Why didn't you ring?", he greeted her.

"The door was open."

"Rubbish, I never leave the door open. Not after those incidents with the chinese mafia and those american idiots last year. Not to mention the cabbie…"

"Sorry Mr Holmes, I can't quite follow you."

"Oh, of course you can't."  
"Sherlock, what's going on?" John showed up in the door case.

"John, where have you been? And why did you leave the door open?"

"I was quite in a hurry, so I forgot. I was at Speedy's. Using his TOILET, Sherlock. I had to use Speedy's toilet!"  
"Excellent, did you get me a coffee?"

"I won't even respond to this."

"Well, you just did. Anyway, we've got a customer. She didn't tell me what's the matter yet."

"Then why don't you ask her?"

"I can hear you, by the way!", the girl grumbled.

John glanced at her, then put on a friendly smile. "Why don't we all take a seat?"

"Why, this is propably not even going to be a four on my list.", Shelock muttered, but sat down in his chair anyway.

"Well,", the girl started, when they were all sitting around the fireplace. "First of all, my name is Helen. Helen Stoner. And I'm here because of…"

"Shhh, don't tell me!" Sherlock interrupted her. "I can use some practice at my deductive abilities."

"You don't need to practise them, Sherlock, you just want to show off."

"Of course I do, John. Now let me think. I think this might have something to do with your twin sister. Something bad happened to her. But it's not just that. You are really frightened. You think something is threatening your life."

"What are you? Some kind of mentalist?"

"Of course not! Didn't you read my webside?"

"Well, to be honest…"

Sherlock sat back, crossed his arms and stared demonstatively at the wall behind her.

"Oh come on Sherlock, don't be such a child." John said.

"Ok, sorry I didn't read it.", the girl said. "But this is important. Please, Mr. Holmes. You're the only one who can help me. Please!"

"Sherlock, you have to at least try!"

"Oh, look at you, John. Always ready to fight for a virgin in need. But this one's a bit young for you, isn't she? And I really doubt she's a virgin."

"Excuse me, Sir?!" The girl called outraged.

"Sherlock, stop that.", John said and gave him an angry look.

"Back to buisness.", Sherlock continued, unimpressed of the sudden animosity around him. "You're from an old family, I presume? A rich one? One or both of your parents died. If theres one left, he's propably an alcoholic."

"Quite so. You've heard about my family then. What happened to my mother and sister. But how do you know about dad's drinking?"

"I didn't know and I haven't heard about your family. I just observe. You're a young girl, not older than sixteen. If you still had caring and relyable parents, they'd have come with you. But at least, you've got enough money to take a cab from a place that's outside London. That must have cost a lot of money."

"How did you know I took a cab? And how the hell do you know where I live?"

"I just know how long you spent in the taxi. It's been raining heavily all morning. I think you ran to the trainstation and found out that you just missed the train and because you were in a hurry and it was raining so hard you took a cab. You still got wet at your way to the station, but your clothes had enough time to dry, except from the spot where your hair touched it. This process would take between one and one and a half hour and there's not so much traffic at this hour at a sunday, so you didn't get stuck in it. That means it must have taken you that long because you don't live in the city. You left the cab right in front of the house and hurried in. If you had come from the subway station, you'd be all wet again by the time you arrived here.

"But how do you know about my twin sister?"

" You suffered a great loss. Normally you're very aware of your appeareance, your hair has been bleached and straightened an curled up so many times in a row, that it has perished. But now your nails are chewed, your shoes are speckled with all sorts of old mud and you've got dark shadows beneath your eyes. You didn't sleep well for a really long time now. It can't be because you've been frightened for weeks, if you had been, you'd have approached me earlier and you wouldn't have been in such a hurry to get here. No, whatever brought you here happened just a few hours ago, so it can't be fear that has been stealing your sleep over such a long period. And the person you recently lost must have been your sister because you are not close to any other people."

"How do you know that?"

"Because of your handbag. It has been scribbled on, but you left out a free space in the middle, for names. But there's just one name, and it's Julia Stoner. And she didn't leave any space for other names. Sisters who are that close to each other are often twin sisters."

"I see." She seemed a bit flattered.

"No need to compliment me. John usually does, but I seem to have upset him. Now, why don't you tell us the remaining details on our way to your house?"

"So there's something you don't already know?", she murmured a bit grumpy.

They entered the train.

John sat down opposite to Sherlock. The girl quickly decided to take the seat next to him. She seemed to find Sherlock a bit fishy.

"All right, now: what happened last night?"

She took a deep breath. "Ok. Fine. I'll better get it over with. But I'll have to start from the very beginning. When my sister and I were nine years old, our mother died in a car accident. It was quite a shock, for all of us, but it seamed to have hit my father worst…"

"Yes, can we just scip the unimportant bit and come to the stuff that matters?"

"Sherlock…", John whispered warningly.

The girl was obviously so caught in her memorys that she didn't seemed to mind his ruthness.

"The trouble started when my sister and me were about to turn sixteen. Somewhat like a week before her birthday she told me she heared a weird sound at night, some kind of hissing, like a snake does. And above that, she said, somebody was whisteling. She recognised the melody. It was the music used in an old western we watched together a few months ago. 'Once Upon a Time in the West'. Have you seen it?"  
"No, of course not, why should I?"

"Well I did.", said John. "It's a good film. A bit spooky."

"Spooky. Exactly. She found it very spooky. She asked me if I had heard it too, but my room was at the other end of the corridor at this time and my sister has always had the lighter sleep… Well, not anymore. I think she never slept as bad as I did in the past weeks. However, she heared that whistle the night before she died. We talked about it the next evening, and when I came into her room the morning after that, she was…she was…" Helen couldn't finish her sentence and started sobbing.

Sherlock sighed. "John."

John gently put his hand on Helens shoulder. "It's okay, my dear. Just…err…take your time."

"But not too much.", Sherlock added.

After half a minute, the girl had caught herself well enough to go on.

"She was just lying there, not moving. Her eyes were open…"

"What was the source of death?"

"I don't know. Nobody did."

"So you did't get someone to find out?"

"Of course we did, we approached an old friend of my father who has been a doctor for thirty years, but he didn't understand it either. Not that I was surprised about that. He has never been a really good doctor, and he's in his seventies now."

"Would you describe her body to my colleque? He's a doctor, and according to him he is even a good one."

"But Sherlock, it's difficult to draw a conclusion that is just based on the descriptions of an other person." John protested.

"Well, we can't dig her out. Or can we?"  
The girl made a terrible, wheeping sound.

"In that case we better get started."

"Her eyes were open, but they didn't actually see. It was like she was staring through the ceiling, she didn't focus it. I don't know if this is somewhat significant…"

"It isn't, it was because she was dead. Now go on. What did her fingernails look like?"

"I don't know, I didn't really notice."

"Oh, it's always the same with you stupid little people. How can I ever get just one of you to understand the significance of a thumbnail? It's not that you don't see, your eyes are perfectly fine, you just don't observe! Ah, I'm just wasting my time. What about her lips. Were they blue?"

The girl thought about it. "I suppose they…might have been. I'm not sure, though."

"We really might have to dig her out."

"I'm sorry. Please, you can't…"

"Don't worry, he won't.", John interrupted her.

"Her eyes?"

"I don't know…I..." Her voice cracked. "Please, can we stop this?"

Sherlock remained quiet and looked out of the window. He seemed lost in thoughts. John looked at the girl to his left. She looked terrible. Her eyes were red from crying and her face was white as snow. Her hair had't been washed for days. She looked like someone who ones had taken a great effort to look beautiful, but then had suddenly forgotten why. Still pretty, John thought, and soon his thoughts wandered off, as he asked himself what his doughter would look like, if he'd ever have one.

None of them said a word till they arrived at the station. Sherlock got up even before the girl could tell them that they had to get off the next station. When they left the train, it was still raining cats and dogs. John suggested to get a cab, but Sherlock waved that away.

"It would take us more time to wait for the cab than to go there by foot. It's not that a long way."

The house was big, more like a little palace. An old summerpalace in a very bad state.

The small group went for the entrance door. When Sherlock stepped into the shadow of the ivy columned pillars with his long coat billowing in the wind, John couldn't help thinking he looked like Count Drakula returning to his castle.

"He is a bit spooky, your boyfriend.", the girl said next to him. "And rude. How do you cope with that all day?"

"He is not my boyfriend!", John said a bit too fiercly. "Why does everyone think we're a couple?"

"I just thought you must love him very much to stand living with him. I suppose it must be hell."

"I heard something like that before."

"So how comes you didn't move out when you understood what he was like?"

"Look, I knew from the first day we met what he was like. He deduced my whole past and my family status from my body language, my hair and my mobile phone. But you get used to that. And believe it or not, you get used to the manners, too."

"I don't think I would. I hate heartless people."

"He's not heartless. He always acts so nochaland and unconcerned, but I don't think he is. I think he's just afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"I don't know, mabey of f…"

"Come on John, I don't think Sarah would appreciate you flirting with a sixteen year old."

"You know what? Forget what I just said. He's a real idiot 99 percent of the time."

She nodded.

"I'm not with Sarah anymore.", John mumbled when they reached him.

Sherlock shrugged. Helen pulled keys out of her handbag and opened the door.


End file.
